Annoyed did not even begin to cover his emotions. Today he teetered on a sharp blade between irate and guilt. This made him unpredictable and the last thing he wanted to do was train the princess. Any curiosity he had of the girl and her past vanished in the wake of last nights nightmares. They had been worse than recent memory, they had left him exceedingly raw.
He walked the girl past the courtyard, through the woods and into the forest to the temple ruins. Mala hadn’t failed him to date and the girl was a descendent of her beloved Brannon. He hoped that the temple would pull on her magic. Many only ever saw the warrior, not many saw the prince that he was, is. They forget that he would have had decades of training and schooling including history lessons. Mistward was not just any old fortress, it was an abandoned fortress that Brannon himself once called home. Abandoned, when Maeve moved inland five centuries ago.
“Do your worst.”
He look up and down her lithe human frame. His worst would kill the girl. The fake smile on her face raised his annoyance to anger, his patience was already holding on a string. Control. He needed control.
“Wipe that smarmy, lying smile off your face.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Bravado, a mask that she wore well and had probably worn everyday during the past decade to survive, but in this moment he didn’t give a shit. So he wrapped his mask of icy coolness tighter. He had dealt with young spoiled royals before, she was no different.
“Here’s your first lesson, girl: cut the horseshit. I don't feel like dealing with it, and I’m probably the only one who doesn’t give a damn about how angry and vicious and awful you are underneath.”
“I don’t think you particularly want to see how angry and vicious and awful I am underneath.”
He wanted to laugh in her face. He had spent the last two hundred years being lost in a pit of darkness spewing vicious angry rage at any person who came too close. Two hundred and three years to be exact. He should have cancelled training, but spitting at Aelin was better than the solitude.
“Go ahead and be nasty as nasty as you want, Princess, because I’ve been ten times as nasty for ten times longer than you have been alive.”
She dropped the act, good.
“Better. Now shift.”
“It’s not something I can control.”
He didn’t doubt her, control was not something she had. Something she had never been taught. Erilea would have had fae trainers, but it was reported that they were softer. The Galathynius household did not trust the fae from Wendlyn, he was amazed when he learned the Ashryver princess married the Terrassen prince.
“If I wanted excuses, I’d ask for them. Shift.”
“I hope you brought snacks, because we’re going to be here a long, long while if today’s lesson is dependent upon my shifting.”
“You’re really going to make me enjoy training you.”
“I’ve already participated in a dozen versions of the master-disciple training saga, so why don't we cut that horseshit, too?”
Fair enough, truth, that is something they could both work with. He gave her lethal smile, “Shut your smart-ass mouth and shift.”
“No.”
Fine, if she had never been taught the control to shift, then fear or anger was the next path. She dodged the first move, but he had expected that, in two shift moves he had her pinned to the ground.
“Shift.”
“Nice try. You think you can trick me into shifting by pissing me off?”
A snarl erupted from his throat in response. Well it did seem like she had lived through at least a few master-disciple relations, enough that she readily realized his tactic.
“Here’s an idea: I’m as rich as hell. How about we pretend to do this training for a week or so, and then you tell Maeve I’m good and ready to enter her territory, and I’ll give you all the gods-damned gold you want.”
Without a second thought his canines were at her throat. Her scent was wild. Even in her human form his magic was attracted to the wildness and it was slowly slipping any control that he had. He wanted, no needed to know the level of power that she had.
Gold. He was not sure if it angered him or sadden him that this was a bargaining piece for her. Her people were starving, while she offered gold to a fae prince. Even if she took her up on her offer, it would be a punishment for him. Maeve had given him an order that was clear.
“Here’s an idea, I don't know what the hell you’ve been doing for ten years, other than flouncing around and calling yourself an assassin. But I think you’re used to getting your way. I think you have no control over yourself. No control, and no discipline -- not the kind that counts, deep down. You are a child, and a spoiled one at that. And, you are a coward.”
She flinched at the word coward, he could not help the nasty laugh.
“Don’t like that word?”
“Coward. You’re a coward who has run for ten years while innocent people were burned and butchered and enslaved. You left them when it was your duty to protect them. You left thousands to die at the hands of that murdering king, while you killed for money.”
Maeve’s words to him echoed through his iced heart. Well at least in that sense you are a matched pair. They had both failed, cowardice and pride, what a pair they were. He looked at her and knew that she had shut down.
“Aelin.”
Nothing.
“Elentiya.”
Nothing. Gods damn it, Her eyes had been dull, but now they were lifeless.
“Get up”
Something flickered.
“Get up”
It takes almost no effort to bring the girl to her feet.
“Pathetic. Spineless and pathetic.”
He wanted her gone and he would give her that chance.
“I had planned to wait until you had some handle on your power -- planned to make you come at night, when the barrow-wights are really something to behold, but consider this a favor, as there are few that will dare come out in the day. Walk through the mounds -- face the wights and make it to the other side of the field, Aelin, and we can go to Doranelle whenever you wish.”
She eyed my weapons.
“You can either wait to earn back your steel, or you can enter as you are now.”
“My bare hands are weapon enough.” I gave her a taunting grin and started our trek to the barrows.
“I leave you here,” and with a feral smile that had most running, “I’ll meet you on the other side of the field.”
He walked around the dead grass. The wind carried her voice, this is not real. Something was not right, maybe wights affected humans differently. His body still at the sound of her scream. Shit.
She was emerging from solid darkness. Petrified. There was someone in the shadows, not a barrow-wight, something worse, a monster that he did not recognize.
Holy gods. Shifting took power, and the amount of shifting she was doing meant she had a well that would rival Lorcan’s. Shit. He tried to carry her, but the continuous shifting between forms made it impossible. He dragged her to the safety of the forest. It took him only moments to circle back. The darkness was gone, just the wights and the treasures remained.
When he returned the shifting had ceased. A part of him wished she would have settled in her fae form. He tossed his knife as he waited for her to wake. He had almost lost control today. his body screamed at him to bite, to claim. He had not felt that urge in centuries and it unsettled him more that he cared to admit. She had lost control today and she had shifted from fear.
He sat and a rock waiting. He did not want to think, he did not want to hunt, he did not want to exist. Since the princess had come into his life, he felt a shift.
“No discipline, no control, and no courage.”
He needed her to know that she had not met the requirement of their bargain. Even though she made it to the other side, even though she came across a being that petrified her, she had not faced the wights.
“You failed, you made it to the other side of the field, but I said to face the wights -- not throw a magical tantrum.”
If glares coul kill…
“I will kill you, how dare --”
“That was not a wight, Princess.”
He glanced back towards the trees until he returned his gaze. That thing should not have been there.
Then what in hell was it, you stupid bastard?
She could read his words and he could read hers. Not an unheard of connection, but rare all the same. He clenched his jaw. He did not want to think about what this meant. He already had too much to think about.
“I don’t know. We’ve had skinwalkers on the prowl for weeks, roaming down from the hills to search for human pelts, but this . . . this was something different. I have never encountered its like, not in these lands or any other. Thanks to having to drag you away, I don’t think I’ll learn anytime soon. It was gone when I circled back. Tell me what happened. I saw only darkness, and when you emerged, you were . . . different.”
She looked at her paled skin, the vomit and the soil. But that is not what he had meant when he said different. He could feel the magic surfacing with every shift, trying to protect her. She had power and she was petrified, not just of the creature and whatever it was doing to her, but to use that magic.
“No, and go to hell.”
I did not have time for this. “Other lives might depend on it.”
“I want to go back to the fortress, right now!”
She was running again, he had to find a way to get her to stop running. “You’re done when I say you’re done.”
“You can kill me or torture me or throw me off a cliff, but I am done for today. In that darkness, I saw things that no one should be able to see. It dragged me through my memories -- and not the decent ones. Is that enough for you?”
In order for him to train her, she needed to trust him. When she said she was done, he needed to respect that boundary. Without a word he headed toward the fortress.
He had started his day on the edge between irate and guilt, but at some point it had shifted from a blade to a battering ram of anxiety. Until today he thought her a spoiled princess and even though a part of her still was, there was more to her story. His pride had never allowed him to think of how that eight year old girl survived the massacre of her family, let alone what she would have seen during the process. There was a creature close to the fortress that attacked by making one relive their worst memories, feeding off the pain and despair of its victims. He had a fortress full of demi-fae that the creature could feast off of. And he could silently communicate with the princess which for fae meant one of three things, really two because they were not mates. The girl either had another power or they were carranam.
Gods above if they were carranam, that meant her power would match his. A power to match his with absolutely no control. There was only one way to confirm his suspicion and right now was not the time. And if Maeve learned, he couldn’t think of that right now either.